


The Solution

by mademoisellePlume



Series: Animorphstuck [1]
Category: Animorphs - Katherine A. Applegate, Homestuck
Genre: Crossover, F/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2012-01-11
Updated: 2012-01-15
Packaged: 2017-10-29 09:15:45
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 7
Words: 6,833
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/318268
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mademoisellePlume/pseuds/mademoisellePlume
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Animorphs in Alternia.<br/>The Solution, rewritten under that premise.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. 1

I woke up to talons biting into my arm and a featherbeast flying back out of my reach when I woke up swinging and swearing. It landed clumsily on my desk, a huge blurry green thing through the sopor. I pulled myself out of it, shaking myself and gasping. “Tobias?” But when my eyes adjusted to how light it was, I could see that the tailfeathers weren’t red enough to be my team mate.

<It is Isthil. Tobias is… missing. And Prince Jayake is in danger.> I heard the voice of my friend in my head. While he currently was a giant bird with cerulean blood and sopor on its’ talons, he was usually a strange sort of alien that I hadn’t ever learned about in schoolfeeding. To be fair however, I knew several species that few other trolls ever learnt about.

“What?” I demanded, pulling myself out of the sopor, dripping with slime. Though many troll sleep in the nude, I’ve taken to sleeping in my morphing outfit in case of late-day visitors. Not that Isthil would be interested in sneaking a peek at me, in any quadrant.

<It’s Dayvid. He is a traitor.>

The anger pierced through the dwindling effects of the sopor and I was wide-awake. I grabbed some throw pillows and shoved them under the blankets. Hopefully they would fool Elephantmom if she peeked in on me through the window.

Deciding between the morphs I could take, I chose to become a hootbeast, one of the kinds with the tufts of feathers that look like horns. Of course, they didn’t curve like my own horns, but stuck straight up like those of the troll we had tried to make one of us.

“What happened?” I demanded as I started to change.

<Jayake, Tobias, and I watched and waited outside Cassie’s hive.  As you know, Jayake suspected David might have decided to turn against us.>

“That weasel! That slimy nyeeerrrrff.”

My tongue suddenly shrank as I spoke, making my words unintelligible. Speaking of slime, it gooped off of my rapidly shrinking body as brown feathers appeared on my skin, bristling out as they spread.

<Dayvid left the barn in his golden eagle morph. Tobias followed him. We followed soon after, but we could not find either Tobias or David,> Isthil explained. <We went to Dayvid’s hive … his former hive, I should say. We found Dayvid there and Jayake spoke with him. I do not know what was said. But the Yeerks were watching the house, and a handful of Hork-Bajir attacked.>

<Attacked who?> I demanded sharply. <Jayake or Dayvid or both?> A small, stupid part of me had to admit the idea of the Yeerks inadvertently auspistizing between Jayake and Dayvid was somewhat funny. Even if this wasn’t a stupid time to think that way, I wouldn’t have shared the observation with Isthil, most parts of the quadrant system confuse him terribly.

<I cannot be sure. But Dayvid escaped and Prince Jayake followed. He asked me to find you. He said we would need reinforcements.>

<Well, he’s got the reinforcements,> I said. <Let’s go!>

I fluttered my wings and hopped up to the windowsill. I looked out at a day that was as dark to me as midnight.

I had become a horned hootbeast. With eyes that looked through blinding light and ears that could hear a squeakbeast squeak at fifty feet. All beasts were better suited to the light then we trolls, since trolls have hunted them for sport and food for as long as history itself, and they adapted to times when there were less trolls to deal with. But hootbeasts always hunted during the day.

<What about Tobias?> I asked Isthil. I certainly hadn’t missed his hesitation when he mentioned Tobias.

<I don’t know for certain,> he said. <But I fear the worst. Dayvid’s morph is stronger in the air than Tobias’s. And Prince Jayake … he believes Tobias is dead.>

I felt my insides turn cold. For a few seconds that seemed to stretch into hours, I couldn’t move. Couldn’t think. I just sat there with my deadly talons squeezing into the soft wood of my windowsill.

Tobias? Dead?

If Dayvid had hurt Tobias, I would…

But what was the point in making threats? I didn’t need to make threats. I knew what I would do. So did Jayake. That’s why he sent Isthil for me.

I had eyes that saw every blade of grass beneath me. Eyes that noted every small, scurrying rodent that moved in the light, protected only from troll grubs and not from other forms of fauna. But I was blind.

All I could see was Tobias. Tobias dead? Not possible!

And Dayvid. I could see him, too. Smirking, pouting, easily offended Dayvid. Dayvid, who half the time seemed to be as reckless as … well, me. But other times had been cowardly and quickly panicked. I truly despise cowards. Dayvid, the blueblood who had never acted like he hated the rest of us for being lower than him, but was always so condescending.

Dayvid, the new Animorph.  The one we ourselves had created after Dayvid had stumbled across the blue box.

We’d had no other choice. Visser Three had learned that Dayvid had the blue, box, the Andalite morphing cube. Dayvid’s ancestor had been taken, forced to accept the Yeerk slugs in his brain, and made into a Controller. His lusus was culled.

Dayvid’s hive had been half-destroyed in the battle that resulted. He was known to the Yeerks. His face was burned into the memory of every troll-Controller on Alternia. They would all be looking for him. All searching for the seven-sweeps old troll who had the morphing cube.

So we’d made Dayvid one of us. Using the blue box, we’d made him an Animorph. Capable of absorbing DNA from any animal he can touch and becoming that animal for a period of two hours at a time.

He was supposed to be one of us. And he was, for a while. He was with us on one of our most difficult missions: to rescue the leader of the surface world and his immediate circle from the Yeerks.

Sounds impressive, doesn’t it? It would have been very impressive, if we’ve succeeded. But we had failed.

The quadrants, top subjugglators, and direct underlings of The Grand Highblood were meeting at a secluded beach resort for unknown reasons in the middle of picking up the nine- and ten- sweeps trolls that wanted to join the fleet in space. It had been the ultimate target for the Yeerks. A chance to make hosts – Controllers – of some of the most powerful trolls on or off of the planet. But the real problem was that one of them – we didn’t know which one – was already a controller.

We had tried to protect them. But we’d gotten ambitious and that monstrous Visser Three, leader of the Yeerk forces on Alternia, had laid a trap for us.

We’d escaped, but not before Dayvid had fearfully agreed to go over to the Yeerk side. Later he’d pretended it was all a ruse. That he was loyal.

Now we knew better.


	2. 2

I flew over hives and parking lots, over hive-towers, and lusii sleeping while their charges slept. Our troll city was always so quiet during the day, every troll but us and those controlled by Yeerks sound asleep with sopor keeping them that way. Isthil led us back to the place where he’d last seen Jayake and Dayvid.

We followed the direction he’d seen them traveling.

Could we find them? And if we did, what would we find?

Suddenly, on the road below us, flashing lights moved swiftly past. A police-droid car. Siren off since it was day, but moving fast. It was moving in the same direction we were.

I looked directly ahead. The mall. It was dark, the artificial lights inside turned off. That’s where the cop car was heading.

<That way,> I said to Isthil.

<Do you see something?>

<No. Just a guess. But that police-droid car is heading there. This is not a low-blooded neighbourhood. A speeding police car could mean we’ve found Jayake and Dayvid.>

The patrol car was faster than we were. By the time we arrived at the mall, the officer-drones were driving from entrance to entrance, shining their spotlights and looking for a forced entry.

A silent alarm must have gone off inside of the mall. In the distance I could see a second police car racing towards us. At least there wouldn’t be any legislacerators with them, given the time of the day. If this had been something more high profile, there might be one or two in day outfits, but those were expected to manufacture and not used for silent alarms and piddly bullshit like this. Most of the time, when day outfits showed up in response to nothing much, we assumed the trolls wearing them were Controllers.

I soared above the acres-large roof of the mall, silent as only a hoot-beast can be. I intended to follow the police around the building, but then I saw the skylight. It was a series of glass pyramids built down the middle of the mall to let moonlight into the main section.

One triangle of glass was shattered.

<There!> I yelled to Isthil.

We wheeled sharply toward the broken glass. I passed above it and looked down. I could see the scattered shards of glass on the landing below.

The question was: What was waiting for me down there? Dayvid was an Animorph. That meant he was a dangerous enemy. He had a lion morph, I knew that for sure. And a golden eagle wingbeast morph.

Could I take a golden eagle? No. Not as an owl.

Could I take a lion? No.

Any he might be lying in wait, with supertroll hearing and supertroll sight. Not to mention far more than troll power.

Well, no matter how good his hearing, he wouldn’t hear me. Hootbeasts evolved their wings specially to make no sound at all as the wind moves across the edges of their feathers.

<Isthil? Are you ready to go in? We’ll need to move fast and spread out immediately, just in case he’s waiting for us.>

<I am ready,> Isthil said calmly.

I spilled air from my wings, changed the angle of attack, and rocketed down towards the jagged hole in the skylight.

Down through the glass! I cleared the shards that seemed to reach for my flesh, flared my wings and turned my downward momentum into horizontal speed.

I blew past the marquee for the stiff-necked  Old Navy store, barely neath the ceiling. At first I saw nothing. Nothing but Isthil dropping down and doing exactly what I had done, but peeling off in the opposite direction.

But then I saw the broken railing. It was made of thick steel above thinner, square steel uprights.

All of this bent outward. As if my mother had run into it.

I turned back and looked up and down the familiar main mall.

He was lying in a pool of blood. A tiger. Sprawled like he was asleep, but with a shallow pool of yellow blood extending around his neck and head.

<Jayake!> I cried and dropped down toward him.

<Rachel!> Isthil yelled. <No! It could be a trap!>

I spread my wings wide and flapped back up to my previous altitude.

Isthil was right.  Dayvid could be waiting for us to rush to Jayake’s side. And there was no doubt that was him, given how rarely seven-foot-long stripebeasts cruise the mall.

<I hear breathing!> Isthil said.

I hadn’t bothered to listen. I’d assumed our leader was dead. But not I focused and yes! There were sounds of breathing. But weak … reedy … with the sound of warm mustard blood bubbling with each breath.

<He’s unconscious,> I said. <Otherwise he’d dimorph. I don’t see Dayvid, but he could be anywhere.> I paused, and then added, <Anything.>

I saw a flash of light, far off down the main walkway. Police lights passing one of the entrances. It would take the drones a while to get inside. In the meantime they’d surround the mall and watch all the exits. The drones blessed predictability made it easy for us to know what they would do and when, as long as no Yeerk rode in their head to override the programmed mind.

It would be easy for us to get away undetected. But I didn’t care about that. All I cared about at the moment was Dayvid.


	3. 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay so, in this chapter, Rachel says she believes in the teachings of the Sufferer. I'm borrowing the idea from Miracle Child (with BramblePatch's permission and also if you're not reading Miracle Child, you should because oh my gods) that there are two cults of Karkat's ancestor. The Signlessists who follow his pre-torture doctrine. And the Sufferists who follow his during-torture doctrine. The latter of which is a lot angrier and shorter. Rachel is a Sufferist, but hasn't always been. Also, most Sufferists are, in Bramble's story, lower bloods that have issues with higher blooded trolls, and it's the same here, which means that dear, cerulean-blooded Rachel isn't always quickly accepted in those circles.

<Isthil. Demorph.> I felt weird telling Isthil what to do. But Jake was down. Not that I was automatically the leader. If Marcoh was here he would be needling at my new belief in the Sufferer and his teachings, as I, as he would no doubt put it, took my bossy cerulean butt and took over the second I had a chance. But I figured someone had to be the leader when Jayake … wasn’t available. We needed to work together.

I felt a slight quiver of doubt. Isthil didn’t heed our hemospectrum at all. Where my taking command would otherwise have a stain of legitimacy due to my blood caste, he had no reason to respect it. Would he do as I asked?

But I could already see the changes in him. He would be fully Andalite soon.

<As soon as you’re demorphed, go to the head of those stairs over there. You’ll be able to see Jayake and cover me.>

It was a large, square opening between floors. An escalator on one end. Stairs at the other end. Railing all around. Basic mall architecture done by lazy carpenter drones that have no creativity when a wriggler isn’t pushing their own ideas for a hive on them.

I waited impatiently for Isthil to dimorph. We would need firepower. And very few things were more dangerous than an Andalite.

Isthil trotted to the top of the stairs. I began to demorph. Then I would morph again and go down the escalator that came from the other direction. And I would go down as a cholerbear. I didn’t think even a lion could do much to hurt me in that morph. And we’d have Jayake covered from both sides.

I gradually took on my normal, troll shape again. I was so bizarre, standing there in the mall. I was barefoot like a seadweller. Wearing just my morphing outfit, a leotard from the short time I flirted with Circus life. Just standing there as I turned back to myself, horns growing and curving outwards, away from my skull. I knew exactly where I was, exactly what stores were around me. After all, I spent a good part of my life in that mall.

But this wasn’t the mall as I knew it. This was a place with searing sunlight dropping down from the broken skylight that I knew better then to go near. A place that was currently filled with the promise of battle. Of threat. Of danger.

A sound!

I looked at Isthil. We both strained, listening. A ringing sound. Coming from … coming from a jewelry store about ten storefronts away.

Staring hard, I could see the broken glass on the floor. Someone had knocked out the window to the jewelry store.

Dayvid! He was probably stuffing gems into a sack right now, hoping to buy back his cushy blueblood life.

“Go!” I hissed to Isthil. “I’ll be right there!”

I finished demorphing and actually noticed, despite myself, that Strife Locker was having a big sale. I began to morph again and-

I never heard him. There was no roar. No warning.

I just caught a glimpse of tan reflected in the glass of the Strife Locker store. A low, tan rocket, skimming along the floor.

I spun!

Lion!

He leaped!

I grabbed the bent, twisted railing with one hand and threw myself over the side.

I cried out in pain as my wrist and fingers absorbed the weight of my body. I dug my claws in despite the pain. I dangled, helpless, swinging above Jake and the floor below. Then I got my hand to a vertical railing and grabbed on.

But what could I do now?

Dayvid shot past and skidded to a stop. Marcoh might have laughed at that. Marcoh wasn’t here.

If I pulled myself back up, I’d be helpless. If I dropped, I’d break an ankle or leg and be completely helpless.

There were two narrow crossbeams spanning the open space. Banners hung from them, and I didn’t have the patience to see what the banners were about at the moment. The closest crossbeam was three feet to my left. It was maybe three inches wide. An inch narrower than the balance beam I had at home.

I’m an amateur gymnast. But I’d neglected practice for some time. And I’d never tried to swing and then drop onto a three inch beam fifteen feet or so above a hard, granite floor.

Dayvid recovered and came racing back. Isthil was still not in sight.

I began to swing wildly, vascular system pounding the breath out of my respiratory system.

Dayvid came sauntering back, big lion paws silent on the floor, tail swishing, massive maned head lolling back and forth like some kind of lion version of a trying-to-hard-to-be-a-coolkid.

<Alarm clock,> Dayvid said. <That’s what the Andalite is chasing. I set it.>

I kept swinging. My legs were inscribing a wider arc. I glared at Dayvid through the bars.

<All I have to do is bite your fingers, Rachel. Aren’t you going to beg for mercy?> Dayvid mocked. <Nah, of course not. You’re brave Rachel.>

I watched, my face twisting in disgust as his rough lion tongue was dragged across my fingers, with aching slowness. He dared, he DARED to hit on me after what he’d done! And then, just as he opened his mouth again and turned his head sideways to bite into my fingers…

I released!

I fell, looking down, saw the crossbeam too far away. One foot hit the beam! I bent my knee and absorbed the impact. I swung my arms over my head, throwing my weight, changing my center of gravity.

For a moment that stretched into eternity I teetered back and forth. My other foot jerked and stabbed at the air. Then I felt the crossbeam. I had both feet down!

I breathed for the first time in what felt like sweeps. Perhaps I should get back into the Circus, set up as an acrobat.

Dayvid reached a claw through the bars and raked at me. I felt the breeze from his claws. I stood, motionless, poised, and barely in control.

Dayvid glared at me with furious, yellow eyes.

<That’s okay,> he said. <I’m not a murderer, you know. I wouldn’t cull a troll of your blood without any obvious deficiencies. Now, a bird that thinks it’s a troll …a tiger … sure.>

I stared back at the lion. The traitor. And I said, “Find a place to hide. Because I’ll make you a promise: I will kill you, Dayvid.”

He turned and walked away and I could hear his laughter.

“I’ll kill you!” I screamed after him until my throat felt raw. “I’ll kill you! I’ll kill you!”


	4. 4

Isthil came running back just as I finished hauling myself back onto firm ground. I was shaking. There were wet spots on my leotard where I wiped off Dayvid’s spit.

<I heard you shouting,> he said.

“Dayvid was here.” I said. “He tricked us. We have to get down to Jayake and-“

I heard the sound of police-drones talking. They’d gotten in.

I cursed angrily under my breath. “We’ll have to hold them off.”

<No,> Isthilsaid, <Jayake is unconscious. We cannot move him; he is far too large. Your police-drones will call for medical help.>

I took a deep breath. He was right. “They’ll call Cassie’s mentor. She the closest exotic beast wrangler. But what if there are Controllers down there? We need to stay close.

<Agreed. And we must hope he revives within the next hour and a half. Otherwise he will be trapped in morph.>

Flashlights were playing across the floor down the hall. The police turned away from us, heading toward the JCPenni and temporarily out of sight. “We have to move fast. They’ll be back soon.”

We were down the escalator and at Jayake’s side as fast as we could manage. Up close I could see one of the torn veins in his neck, still pumping slowly, still spilling yellow blood. But he was alive. Unlike Tobias.

<What morph?>

“Flea would be best, but their senses are absurdly limited. I want to know what’s going on. Morph to fly.”

We were halfway into fly morph when new cop drones arrived and began to walk carefully, cautiously, down the main concourse toward us. They played their flashlights around, looking for whatever they thought might have brought them out here.

They were certainly about to get a surprise.

I tried to morph faster. Jayake’s already huge orange-and-black bulk seemed to balloon upwards, rising above me.

I felt the gossamer wings burst from between my shoulder blades, and another set of legs burst from the scars that my grubhood legs had left behind. My horns morphed to antennae, and my face painlessly, but awfully melting into that of the tiny insect I was turning myself into.

But none of those things meant anything to me. Tobias was dead. Jayake might still die. And I was going to have to go after Dayvid. I was going to have to hunt him down.

I was going to hunt him down and destroy him.

No. Destroy was a weasel word. It didn’t mean anything. I wasn’t going to cull him either, because this wasn’t for the good of the group. I was going to kill him.

I felt sick inside. It might have been the morphing that was shredding my internal organs and replacing them with ones far simpler.

Or it might have been the feeling of such fierce rage and hatred that was provoking me to go against everything my new beliefs said, everything my moirail would want.

<Isthil? Tell me something. When Jayake sent you to get help, why did you come for me and not Marcoh or Cassie?>

<Prince Jayake was specific. Get Rachel.>

<Did he say why?>

Isthil hesitated and then said, <Jayake told me Tobias was probably dead. I said this was a terrible thing. And Prince Jayake said, ‘Yes. If Dayvid’s culled Tobias, we may have to do a terrible thing, too. Get Rachel.’>

I don’t know how that made me feel. I’m not that inwardly focused, really, or romantically focused either. But I felt … strange. Jayake had called for me specifically. Because he wanted someone who would do precisely what I was planning on doing.

Like I said, I’m not big on feelings, but something about that felt wrong.

And yet, as I completed the morph to fly, I knew Jayake had chosen right. See, I … I pitied Tobias. I don’t think I even knew how much I pitied him until that moment.

But if Dayvid had killed him, I would have revenge. I would make Tobias’s murderer _pay_.


	5. 5

I was bathed in light.

A loud, booming, vibrating drone voice said, “What the … that’s a stripebeast! A stripebeast! In the mall!”

“Some grubs’ lusus?”

“What are you, stupid? Grubs suck all the colour outta creatures. This thing look white to you?”

“What do we do with it?”

“Call it in to the legislacerators. It’s hurt. Need to call someone … I’ll be culled if I know who. Just keep your weapon on it. Might still be dangerous.”

<Isthil! Into Jayake’s ear.>

Our fly wings started moving and we launched into the air with a sort of ‘PCHOOOO’ sound.It took a few seconds, using the fly’s weirdo shattered TV set eyes to find Jayake’s ear. But then we spotted vast, triangular cave.

It was a cave full of long hairs and deep, resonating sounds from both outside and inside the tiger’s body.

<Isthil, how long has Jayake been in morph?>

<I can only approximate. I believe it has been about thirty-two minutes.>

<That’s your idea of ‘approximate’?>

<I am assuming he flew straight to this mall from the spot where I left him, and morphed as soon as he reached this place,> Isthil said. <It may be as much as thirty-five minutes.>

<Should be time enough for Cassie’s mentor to get here.> I said.

But the adult troll who Cassie goes to in order to learn more about the art of beast training, healing, and management was not the next one to arrive. The paramedic-drones arrived faster. And to my amazement, they went right to work on Jayake – once they were certain that the stripebeast was not about to attack them.

They put pressure on the terrible wound in his neck and slowed the bleeding, but this was about the extent of their ability.

Half an hour later, Cassie’s mentor arrived with my moirail in tow plus several assistants. Maybe she’d guessed that news of a wounded tiger in the mall meant Jayake. She and the rest of the newly arrived trolls were in day outfits. I could see Cassie’s looping horns jutting out of the outfit that protected her from the sun and breathed slightly easier, reassured by her presence.

<Cassie! It’s me, Rachel.> I called in one-to-one thought-speak. Of course, she couldn’t answer me, but she could listen.

“Set up for an IV. He’s lost a lot of blood.” Cassie’s mentor said in a clipped, professional tone.

<Cassie, this tiger is Jayake. He’s been in morph for a little over an hour. You need to get him conscious. It was Dayvid. Dayvid attacked him. And Tobias … Tobias is … > I couldn’t say it. I couldn’t. I wish we were both human and that she could fold me into her arms. <Just, look, get Jayake conscious, no matter what. I have Isthil with me. We need to go look for Dayvid. He may go after Marcoh next.>

“Wait a minute, I know this stripebeast.” Cassie’s mentor said. “He’s one of mine. He’s from my show. No one alerted me there’d been an escape! Okay, now squeeze the bag a couple of times to get the blood flow started. I’m going to close that wound right here and now. Otherwise we might as well just cull him now.”

<Cassie, if you hear me, just say “okay.”>

“Okay,” Cassie said. “Good luck.” It was all she could say, really. It helped. A bit.

“Good luck?” The chief assistant (and matesprit of Cassie’s mentor) echoed. “We don’t need luck, we have your mentor.”

<Isthil, you ready?>

He said he was, and we flew. No one, with the possible exception of Cassie, noticed two flies emergy from the tiger’s ear.

As we flew off, I had to fight the fly’s urgent desire to land in the puddle of blood and take a taste. Who knew flies and rainbow drinkers had so much in common?

We rose in our odd loopy fly way, and as I skimmed over the drones and trolls below, I heard one of the drones say, “We figure he fell through that skylight up there. The glass must have cut.”

“That must be it,” Cassie’s mentor agreed. “Only, you know, if I didn’t know better, I’d swear this wound was made by another big cat.”

“Will he live?” Cassie asked.

I didn’t hear the answer. I didn’t know if I wanted to hear the answer.

I set course for the broken skylight. The fly’s eyes had no problem with the daylight. There were cop-drones on the roof of the mall, but we found a place to land, out of sight behind a house-sized air-conditioning unit.

We demorphed quickly. I could hear two officer-drones talking in a low whisper just on the other side of the A.C. unit.

“A tiger, here? With no one knowing it’s escaped? It must be one of the Andalite bandits in a morph.”

We knew the drones had been partly infiltrated by the Yeerks. Still, it was a shock hearing them talk about Andalites.

“You may be right, but there’s nothing we can do about it. None of the other cop-drones here are our people.”

“Visser Three won’t take that attitude,” the first officer-drone said, shivering despite the fact that drones don’t feel temperature. “He’ll think we should have found a way to kill it.”

“Then maybe Visser Three doesn’t need to hear about this.”

“Yeah. No need to bother him with every minor thing that goes on. Yeah. We keep our mouths shut.”

Isthil and I continued morphing again. He to his featherbeast morph, and me to the hootbeast once more.

We flew away into the night in a straight line for Marcoh’s hive. Marcoh would be asleep, unsuspecting. He was safe behind locked doors and strong walls.

Only walls and doors meant very little to an Animorph.

I began to understand the level of difficulty we were facing with our new foe. Visser Three had been trying to get rid of us for a long time. He had thousands of Controllers of various species, spacecraft and all of his own strange and alien morphs.

We had just the six of us. Only … it was five now. And maybe four.

Just us, against a troll who could become any beast he could touch. Any living, breathing thing. A flea in our hair, a purrbeast in a tree, an echobeast in the night. And, when we were unprepared and vulnerable, a lion, a tiger, or a bear.

I think I was understanding why Visser Three loathed us so deeply.


	6. 6

The sun was edging down towards the horizon, and ghosts of the moons were hanging in the sky as we approached Marcoh’s hive. Night was approaching.

I felt like I was boiling, that pressure was building up inside of me. My cold blood was heated, and I could almost taste Dayvid’s blue blood already.

Too much was swirling through my thinkpan. Tobias, dead. Maybe Jayake too. And Dayvid, the traitor Animorph.

Meanwhile, the Grand Highblood and his chums were still meeting while Visser Three and the Yeerks conspired to steal their free will. Not the kind of joke the Grand Highblood would find very funny.

It was all way, way too much. I had to focus on one thing at a time. Focus on the priorities, Rachel. Dayvid was number one. Everything else was number two.

Dayvid had to be stopped. Before he could stop us.

But still, somewhere in the back of my thinkpan, it bothered me that Jayake had sent Isthil to get me. Me, specifically. Once he realized that we might need to take extreme measures, he said, “Get Rachel.”

What did that mean? Was that how Jayake thought of me? As some crazed, violent nut who would do anything? …Did he think of me like that because I have the highest blood colour of us all? Because I came so late to the teachings of the Sufferer? Because we blue bloods are so unstable as a group, as Dayvid was certainly gleefully proving at the moment?

No, of course not. He just knew I was good in a fight. That’s all. It didn’t mean anything.

Besides, wasn’t it true? Another part of my thinkpan argued. Weren’t highbloods pretty fucked up? Cassie might argue that it was conditioning, but the Signless followers all think that. Jayake and I were Sufferists, and during his last moments, he hadn’t been quite as forgiving to the higher-blooded trolls. Which made sense. Highbloods had gotten him killed. Because they couldn’t deal with the truth that he spoke.

Besides, wasn’t I just the person to call if you needed to kill an Animorph?

Marcoh’s hive. Marcoh’s window. Open.

Open? Why did Marcoh leave his window open? Had his apedad climbed out through the window? It wasn’t characteristic of his lusus, who was in a deep depression, but maybe. Marcoh might have left it open if he’d already flown out of it. Maybe that was it. Maybe Marcoh wasn’t even in his hive. Maybe he’d realized we needed him.

I wheeled to traverse the back of the house, moving clower to the window as I did so. I could see Marcoh inside, head down on his desk as if he’d fallen asleep there. His horns, curling towards each other, kept his forehead from touching the desk.

<This smells bad.> I told Isthil.

<You have a strong sense of smell in that morph?>

<I meant it figuratively, Isthil. Visser Three laid a trap for us, then Dayvid laid another. I’m done with motherfucking traps.>

<Agreed.>

<Marcoh!> I called in thought-speak. <Marcoh! Wake up! Wake up now!>

I wanted to see him jerk out of a nightmare and look around. I wanted to make sure he was alone. He shook his head a bit and mumbled something I didn’t hear.

<Wake up!> I yelled.

Suddenly he sat up and looked around.

<Marcoh, it’s me, Rachel. I’m outside. Are you alone in your room?>

He nodded. Yes, he was alone. No smiling or leering.

<Okay, let’s go,> I said.

Isthil was ahead of me. He swooped down towards the window as Marcoh stood, watching with a tiny smile and his hands behind his back.

Swoooooooosh! Isthil went through the open window and-

Marcoh pulled his hands out from behind his back and Isthil made acquaintance with the Louisville Slugger as it swung in a short, sharp arc.

I saw pieces of shattered beak go twirling away like shrapnel from an explosion.

Isthil fell to the grass outside. Marcoh laughed quietly – but, of course, this wasn’t Marcoh at all.

Dayvid had morphed into our team-mate.

Isthil wasn’t moving. Dayvid/Marcoh held up one finger. Then another. Then another. One, two, three.

How many of us he’d killed.

Tobias. Jayake. Isthil.

But it should have been four. What about Marcoh?

I realized the reason why soon enough. Marcoh was still alive because he was a troll. Dayvid had said it already. He wouldn’t cull able-bodied trolls. Well, he’d included a slimy hemoist remark, but I had a feeling that had been just to piss me off more.

As I watched, I saw his features blur. The horns changed from almost an ‘m’ shape to sticking straight up into the air. The colour of his irises went from brown to blue. His fangs became sharper. Now he was Dayvid. But he was still morphing as he stepped back out of sight.

I had to think. Dayvid was methodically culling us, one by one. What was his next move, his next morph? Jayake would know. He was the leader, not me.

I glanced down at Isthil’s prone form and felt an urge to go to him. But no, that’s what Dayvid wanted.

I had to get to Marcoh. The real Marcoh, probably tied up and unconscious somewhere in the hive.

…No, that wasn’t right either.

Out of the window came the golden eagle that so resembled Dayvid’s lusus. Excepting, of course, that he had acquired one that was not of lusus get, and it’s feathers were as yellow as Jayake’s blood.

It was one-on-one. Him and me. Golden eagle versus hootbeast. His morph was faster than mine, but the sun was still shining, and mine was more able to deal with the glare of its rays. Thermal lifts were sparser as the day came to an end, but his wings were better suited to taking advantage of them then mine. I’d have to make sure he couldn’t.

I turned and raced away, hearing him follow my path. Isthil lay on the damp grass, breathing slowly. But to my relief, he was no longer entirely a harrier.

<Follow me, Dayvid,> I said. <We’ll see who wins this one.>

<Brave words,> he sneered. <But you’re _mine_. > The surge of white-hot black emotion I felt at those words is absolutely indescribable. <Just like that Bird-boy of yours was mine.>

And that’s when the pressure inside of me evaporated. I was cold again, like a proper blueblood. I knew what to do, and I wanted to do it.

I shouldn’t resent Jayake for thinking of me. It’s what made him a good leader. He knew us all. He knew me.

<For you, Tobias,> I whispered. And I led Dayvid to his doom.


	7. 7

I flew at top speed. Dayvid was faster, his huge wings plowing through the air.

But I had an eagle morph myself, and I’d been an eagle many more times than Dayvid had. I knew what they could do far better than any other troll could possibly know.

I knew how quickly he could turn, how well he could accelerate or slow down. I knew so precisely what Dayvid could see that I might as well be a Yeerk riding in his head and peering out through his eyes.

I wanted him to keep me in sight. But he couldn’t reach me, not yet. Not until the time and place I had chosen.

Silently I swooped low across rooftops, swerved around trees, swooshed down the shadowed setbacks between homes. I skimmed fences and dropped behind them, out of sight, to suddenly change direction and gain a few feet of breathing room. He could try and rise high up on the thermals, but he’d lose track of me quickly and I was cutting right through them. I show through gaps in the trees, gaps too narrow for Dayvid’s vast wings.

But always he kept up. He never gained too much, and I never allowed him to lose me.

<You’re very good, Rachel,> he said. <You know, I wish I didn’t have to do this.>

<Yeah, but you just can’t help yourself,> I sneered, disgusted by his behaviour.

<You all left me no choice! You forced me. What was I supposed to do? Let Jayake order me around, let a pissblood get me killed? Spend the rest of my life in hiding, obeying scum like him?>

<What do you want, pity?>

<I lost my lusus. My future. Everything! Thanks to all of you.>

<What are you, nuts? We’re not your problem. Or at least, we weren’t until you turned against us.>

I was nearing the most dangerous part of the chase. As long as there were trees and buildings, I could take aqdvantage of my smaller size and superior night vision. But now we were emerging over an open field, leaving the houses behind us.

Just a hundred yards or so to go.

Dayvid poured on the speed, and his huge wings pushed him after me. I dodged, but he’d known I would and by cutting his angle managed to come with two feet of me.

But I had my target in sight the high power lines. Had Dayvid seen them? Could he, with the light from the sun making fine details hard to see for his current morph?

Up, up I went, my wings screaming from the effort.

But now Dayvid was on me. Within five feet of the wires, I felt those wings shadow me.

<Aaaahhhh!> Sharp pain, as steel-strong talons sank into the muscles of my back.

<Noooooooo!> I screamed in frustration. I couldn’t go any further, my wings beating uselessly. I wasn’t going to reach the wires. I wasn’t going to watch the bastard fry on ten thousand volts.

Talons squeezed harder … harder … I lost control of the muscles in the back half of my body. One of the talons was sinking deeper, trying to pierce my heart.

I felt Dayvid’s wicked, curved beak tearing at the back of my head, ripping at the feathers and flesh there.

I was losing. The realization terrified me. Not because I was scared to do, but because it meant Dayvid would win.

Tobias… Jayake…

Dayvid was going to win. My mind began to shut down. I should dimorph – but no, I was too high up. And it was so hard to concentrate, to focus.

He was actually going higher, lifted up by a thermal. If I demorphed, I would fall to my death.

<Sorry, Rachel. But after all, birds die all the time, don’t they?> He sighed. <I do wish it could have been different. >

And then it happened.

I saw it drop from out of nowhere. Out of the sky. Out of the clouds it dropped.

Wings back, talons raked forwards.

It hit Dayvid in the back of his head! Eagle feathers flew. Dayvid screamed in pain.

And Tobias – yes, Tobias – said in private thought-speak, <Rachel, Dayvid is really getting to be a pain in the butt.>

Dayvid released me. My wings flapped again. I was hurt, but Dayvid couldn’t know how badly. And he didn’t want to fight two at once. He turned and flew away.

<Tobias?> I cried. <But you’re supposed to be dead.>

<I am? Who, me?>

**Author's Note:**

> The reason I mentioned Dayvid's ancestor being captured and all that was to translate the whole 'they took my parents!' problem. Basically, since this is set before the Summoner, there are adults on Alternia, and Dayvid's ancestor found him and decided to train him/set him up with what he needed in life, etc.
> 
> Also, his name is Dayvid and all the other name changes are for the six-letter rule. Ax follows it because he noticed the other trolls names followed it and just assumed it was a troll tradition and chose his nickname to suit.


End file.
